The nation’s first ever shopping mall, Ampang Park Shopping Centre, will be demolished to make way for the MRT project.

The forced acquisition notice was issued to tenants of the Kuala Lumpur mall on Sept 25.

The 42-year-old mall is located at Kuala Lumpur’s main artery, Jalan Ampang.

The mall is acquired under Section 8 of the Land Acquisition Act 1960, shopping centre manager Annie Low told tenants in a letter sighted by Malaysiakini.

“The onus is on the parcel owners to do the necessary pertaining on the matter. The management corporation can only assist and facilitate in the matter,” she said in the letter.

The acquisition is for the Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya MRT line construction and was gazetted on Aug 17.

The mall is now connected to the Ampang Park LRT station.

It was designed by the team behind Singapore's People's Park Complex, which was the first shopping mall with an atrium design connected to a residential building, in Southeast Asia at the time.

People's Park Complex opened in 1973, the same year as Ampang Park.

Ampang Park's design was in partnership with Kuala Lumpur architect Thomas A S Tiang.

Ampang Park opened its doors in March 1973, two months before Campbell Complex.

Before that, city folk were introduced to the joys of a modern supermarket via The Weld Supermarket which opened in the 1960s.

Today, the mall is popular among KLites for its wide array of fashion boutiques offering traditional Malay clothes.

It is, however, overshadowed by its glitzier neighbours like the Suria KLCC and Avenue K located on the same road.